The present invention relates to broadcast communications systems, and more specifically concerns such systems in which each receiver in such systems can personalize the received information to his own requirements.
A conventional radio news or other information broadcast contemplates a single stream of news items spoken by a newscaster and simultaneously received by thousands of listeners. The newscaster must attempt to transmit items which are of interest to the maximum number of listeners in the limited time available. The listeners for their part must attend to many items which are of no interest to them personally in order to catch the relatively few which are of interest. Additionally, the listeners must be available at the time the items are transmitted; delayed listening via recording is not very practical. The analog voice nature of radio broadcasts also makes them rather wasteful of scarce spectrum resources.
Some recent information services attempt to get around one or more of these limitations. News items are available in stored digital form to subscribers of facilities such as Prodigy(R) interactive personal service. Other services even scan news wires for selected topics, then clip them automatically into folders for a recipient. Although such items can be accessed at any convenient time, these services require the recipient to be located at a computer terminal connected to the service, and the visual presentation requires enough of his attention that little other simultaneous activity is possible. Even more recently, specialized portable terminals receive broadcasts of digital information items such as stock-market quotes, for display on a small screen.
Solutions to the above problems still fall short in many respects. The recipient is tied to a computer terminal, must read a display, or attend to all items being broadcast. A large number of people who need current information on a relatively small number of topics could benefit greatly from a service using the paradigm of a radio news broadcast which can be individually tailored to each listener's specific interests, and which can be listened to at any time convenient to them.